Thursday, September 26, 2013

DECIBEL MAGAZINE: ISSUE #109

G’morning, brainiacs. After a brief shipping delay due to damaged Godflesh Flexi-disks, issue #109 of Decibel Magazine is out on shelves. It’s another great chapter, with an entertaining Call & Response column with Ghoul’s Digestor as well as features covering Skeletonwitch, Doomriders (whose new album I review), and Morbid Angel. Here are the pieces I wrote for the magazine this time around:

Page 26: Ulcerate - Vermis profile. I exchanged e-mails with Jamie Saint Merat, founding drummer of New Zealand’s extreme metal conquerors Ulcerate. We discussed tyranny, Latin translations, and how his geographic isolation has impacted their music. Although it didn’t make the profile, he was also refreshingly honest about how their band name doesn’t seem to capture the sound they’ve developed since their high school days of gore metal.

Page 86: Blood Red Throne - Blood Red Throne review. I really enjoyed this Norwegian death metal album, even if the score seems unspectacular. It was a lot of fun, leading me to quip about Richard Simmons and my childhood dream of being a seven-foot tall baseball player. I recommend this album to those who embrace the less technical side of death metal and don’t mind flashes of metalcore. I gave it 7/10.

Page 88: Doomriders - Grand Blood review. I dig these guys from Beantown, and proudly wear one of their shirts often (let’s face it, their Grim Reaper “D” logo can brawl with anyone else’s logo and win a heavyweight belt). I handed this review to Decibel a week before seeing them play with Red Fang, and after hearing the songs performed live I likely would have changed this score to an 8. That’s not entirely fair, since the album should stand on its own --which it solidly does-- but sometimes songs don’t make as much sense until you see them screamed in person, or accompanied by the synchronized headbanging of a front-row of Brooklynites. I also gave this 7/10.

I have three more pieces in next month’s issue, so more on that in a few weeks. This ssue should be on shelves now if you’re still one of those weirdos who ventures into the world and stores and stuff to buy things. Just order stuff online like the rest of us Morlocks.

Go over here to subscribe to Decibel Magazine. At $29.95 for a whole year this is one of the biggest bargains out there. The writing staff is fantastic, the editors are awesome, and the design is sleek and filled with trippy illustrations. Definitely worth your money: http://store.decibelmagazine.com/collections/subscriptions-renewals